


Fascinating

by bossers



Category: Fallout 3
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-06-05 17:02:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15175298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bossers/pseuds/bossers
Summary: A fic I started and am contemplating continuing :thinking emoji:Softness is a rare commodity in the Wasteland, and Wrench looks very soft.





	1. Chapter 1

Of course he noticed when she walked in. She’s new and smooth and well armed. Relief bloomed in his tired frame and Charon straightens to attention, looking a couple inches more intimidating than before. His eyes examined every inch of her and her gear. The monotony of his day to day life made his mind feel dull and his thoughts a circle jerk trap of boredom, but each detail of this new smoothskin who was approaching the bar was a new investigation for him to mull over.

She ran her fingers through her greasy hair, it was too thick for flyways and hid tangles she was trying to loosen. Charon noted its mild texture and her bronzed skin that seemed brighter than it was when compared to the dark black bob that framed her face. Would that still be a bob he mulled, staring all the harder at the messy chin length cut of her hair. His intense gaze sent a chill up her spine. She’d long since learned the feeling of being watched and glanced his way, breath catching in her throat the way it did when she saw something that could snap her neck.

Charon took the opportunity to examine her eyes. Like her hair they were dark, so dark he almost couldn’t tell where pupil stopped and iris began. An unspoken contest was held briefly that Charon won as Ahzrukhal called her attention to him. “Don’t mind him, he won’t bite- yet,” he laughed a bit too hard at his own joke while she smiled politely. Charon kept watching as they bartered. She had a good deal of booze in that heavy pack, along with the glint of even more weapons than the rifle strapped to the back and the pistols on her hips. His hands ran over his shotgun instinctively. Long before he’d had his fill of watching she left, he felt disappointed and resigned himself back to leaning against that same old wall.

It would be a couple weeks before he saw her again and when she did it was with a wild look in her eyes that wasn’t there before and a toothy grin for him that sent his mind abuzz with questions. She hurled a heavy bag at Ahzrukhal, wiping the smirk off his face before he could even greet her. The crunch and clang of aluminum that rang out made heads turn as the undisputable sound of many caps caught people’s attention. “Well I’ll be…” Ahzrukhal muttered as he hefted the bag and poured them out over the counter. Her expression dried up as the ghoul began to methodically count them out.

As the last stack was made, the bar owner clapped his cracked, skinless hands together in delight and swept his horde back into the sack they’d been delivered in. “A deal’s a deal,” he purred, grabbing her hand and running both of his over it, shaking it with the expression he wore when he was fleecing some sap. It made Charon sigh, loathing to see yet another victim of Ahzrukhal’s silver tongue. When he looked back up she was walking toward him. “Talk to-“ he started before she held up the paper.

A fire lit in his chest. "You purchased my contract from Ahzrukhal? So, I am no longer in his service. That is good to know." She cocked her head at his odd phrasing and quick words. He seemed excited in a way. “Y-eah, I did. I’m Wrench, and you are Charon right?” He can barely hear her over the rushing blood in his ears. “Yes.” She offers to shake his hand, but he only has eyes for Ahzrukhal. “Excuse me I need to chat with my former employer.” He brushed by her, pulling up his shotgun to aim before firing it straight into the other ghouls face. He pumps it and fires another for good measure. Rare delight swelled in him looking over the bloody mess that was once that slimy, good for nothing ghoul.

She held her place, mouth parted in shock as the rest of the customers fled. He returned to her, peering down at his much shorter boss. “Okay so uh, is that gonna happen to me if I sell your contract?” she asked brows raised. 

“Ahzrukhal was an evil bastard. Don’t be one or do but don’t lose my contract.” 

Her thick lips pursed and her sparse brows furrowed in thought. “Well I guess I can do that, but uh, I was gonna just give you your contract, so-“

Charon lifted a hand to stop her, “Don’t work like that. I cannot hold my own contract.” Before she could even ask why he answered, “It was an old brainwashing project. I don’t want to talk about more than that. Whoever holds the contract has my employment. That’s how it goes.”

Her eyes welled with pity and he hated it. But it didn’t linger thankfully. She extended her hand again, “I’m Wrench in case you didn’t catch that, I guess we’ll be traveling together then.” He shook it if only because it would be a shame to let her politeness go to waste. Manners weren’t common and even more so coming from a smoothskin. An awkward silence fell between them until Wrench readjusted her pack and led the way out of the Ninth Circle and out of the city itself.

\---

As they sat by the fire that night, Charon found himself watching her again. Her body was thick and strong in a way that could only be gotten from having grown up with all the food you could want. Much how he’d been raised and very unlike the scrawny populace of the Wasteland. He followed the places where her flesh protruded and squished to accommodate her seated form. It made him want to squeeze her, test the plush fat that lay on the bed of muscle it hid. How he’d like to do that led to thoughts he wish would let up and stay buried already.

Where Charon was attempting discreetness and keeping his desires to himself, Wrench grew bored of sitting in silence with her new companion and turned to openly eye Charon’s exposed arms. The ghoul tensed and flinched defensively when she rose abruptly and kneeled beside his carefully distanced seating place from her.

“Can I touch you?” she asked, raising a tentative hand toward his arm. Charon almost refused out of habit to a master’s request not placed in the form of an order, but reconsidered the policy. Rather than answer he raised his arm for her. Wrench clamped her hands onto the limb, directing her fingertips into the exposed muscle and the edges of the dry patches of skin that yet remained.

Her expression was one of awe and childish delight. She examined the whole of his arm and was now moving back up to his bicep. He was enjoying the touch of her untattered hands, but the weren’t as soft as he was hoping. They’d already become calloused and rough like everyone else’s, just how the Wasteland liked them. Still the way she oo’d and ah’d under her breath almost made him feel like a young man again, even if she was also muttering some science crap too. Her honest reactions were refreshing, so he wanted to push them further and curled his arm into a hard flex. Wrench just about yelled in his ear, “Holy shit, seriously you’re too buff! I need to get my arms in shape.” She pulled away to flex her own arm comparatively. While it formed a visible hard lump it wasn’t enough to compare to Charon, the giant of a ghoul he was.

“Yer arms seem fine, kid,” he rasped, but his words didn’t stop Wrench from throwing herself into push up position and start pumping. Charon was amazed she had the excess energy to bother working out, it was honestly a lost concept in the Wasteland since it carved you lean and hard by default. He’d only taken up the habit to keep himself from wasting away in the Ninth Circle. It was so different to watch a Vaultie’s approach to life. While he watched, he would prod her form with the toe of his boot, it only made her grin as sweat started dripping off her face. When she’d worn herself weary she stood and pulled a rag to dry herself with. Once again Charon watched, mouth going dry.


	2. Over Did It

The next morning he noticed Wrench cringe when she had to lift and load up, but let it go. But later her arms were too tense and shaky to aim her rifle straight as a vicious dog came bounding at her. She fired and missed, and as she struggled to clear the shell, Charon stepped forward with his monster of a shotgun. He butted the beast to the ground and capped it with one fluid motion.

Wrench was quiet behind him as he caught his breath, adrenaline pumping. It’d been a while since he’d felt like this, caught up in a moment of real combat. 

“Thanks.”

He glanced back at her and found her looking almost irritated. So he reciprocated her silence. And like that they kept on traveling.

She hadn’t been excessively talkative before, but now she didn’t even read the dilapidated billboards out loud or announce when she decided they were going to ransack a building. But he didn’t know her, maybe the day before wasn’t the usual. Still there was something in the air, a tension that hadn’t been there before.

That night her irritation got all the more evident. She kept fidgeting and furrowing her brows even though there wasn’t blazing sunlight to squint through. She cleaned her gun and cooked up some Pork ‘n Beans. When she served it he noticed she really piled it on for him. He’d had enough of whatever this was and opted to force an interaction. When she handed him his plate he was slow to take it, staring at her downturned face. The delay forced her to look up and when she did he took the plate. “Thanks.” He saw whatever this was flare up in her expression.

He was about to say something more, but that was enough to compel her to say something at last. “You don’t have to do that. I can take care of myself.” 

Charon sat processing that for a second. “You– would have wanted me to let that dog bite you?”

She can hear how stupid it all sounds put that way and she cringes. “I didn’t bring you along because I wanted you to protect me. You’re here because of,” she reaches into her pocket and pulls out the contract, shaking it at him. “This! I don’t travel with people. I don’t want anyone getting torn up on my account. So don’t do anything on account of this!” She shakes it again.

He straightens up and looks down at her with his well–practiced poker face. There was a lot to unpack in that. Distrust, fear, empathy. He doesn’t know what to make of it. “The contract does call for protection of the holder. But you can order me not to.”

Wrench is dumbfounded, then unfolds the contract and squints at it. Charon relaxes to watch, in cupped in one hand. She’s working hard to read the faded print, frustrated mutterings join the ambient noise of crackling fire and distant wildlife. 

Finally she gives up and turns back to him, “I can’t read this thing! It looks like its been through the wash like ten times!”

“Probably has. 200 years’ll do that to something.”

There’s a pause and her expression does a 180 from scrunched and angry to open and awestruck. “You’re one those ghouls?”

She knows her history then. Didn’t miss a beat. He leans a bit more into his hand and Wrench stares at his tattered face with a new kind of reverence. The red light of the flickering fire makes the shadows dance ominously across his face, but she’s just fascinated. Charon usually hates being stared at but not this time.

He grunts and affirmation and she knee walks so she’s at his side again. “You were there when the bombs dropped?” It’s a whisper of a question. He grunts again.

“What was the transformation like?”

He blinks. That wasn’t the question he was expecting. Usually everyone wants to know what life was like before the bombs, or what the end of the world was like. 

He’s not that talkative a ghoul, but with the day’s tension cut and this smoothskin dangerously close asking peculiar questions, he rises to the task. She listens intently as he describes the agony of radiation sickness, how he was sure he’d died, but then woke up again. Flesh flaking off, and how that didn’t hurt even though it probably should have.

She’d press for details when he’d falter, but otherwise settled in on the ground beside the box he was sitting on as his story went on. When he was done, Wrench kept sitting with him looking pensive.

“It seems like your change took longer than a modern ghouls,” she says.

“Talked to a lot of ghouls have you?”

“I guess so! Finding Underworld was amazing. Everyone was so friendly. The first person I met when I left the vault was a ghoul actually.”

She slips into a thoughtful silence for a while before Charon breaks it. “So you’re done being mad?”

Wrench sits up looking embarrassed. “I wasn’t mad, I was just–“ She purses her lips, giving up on arguing that point immediately. “Charon.” He feels himself light up when she says his name for what he realizes is the first time. “I order you–“ she falters and looks mad again, “To only do what’s in your best interests.”

“Understood.” He replies mechanically. Wrench searches his face for something, but he’s stoic as ever. He doesn’t know how that order will take if at all. It’s weird, but kind. Sort of. Vaulties sure are something else.

That thought reiterates itself when she relaxes up against the box again, letting her arm press against his thigh casually as she props her head on her fist. Goes to show how long he’d been trapped in the Ninth Circle that just getting leaned on little was enough to get him worked up. He eats his now cold Pork ‘n Beans to distract himself.

All he can focus on is the pressure of contact and the miniscule movements that come when Wrench shifts and the subsequent disappointment when she gets up and scarfs down her portion of cold dinner then crawls into her bed roll.

“Night!” she calls out.

“Night,” he answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for everyone's kind words! This'll be super self indulgent lmao but that's what fic is for anyways... right? Right??


End file.
